


Observational Physics

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Defining the Relationship, F/M, Kanan Jarrus Lives, M/M, MayThe4th Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23976559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Kallus adjusts to his new life with the Rebellion and learns some important lessons along the way.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 12
Kudos: 135
Collections: May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Fanworks Exchange 2020





	Observational Physics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Llwyden ferch Gyfrinach (Llwyden)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llwyden/gifts).



By the time his family had returned to something approaching a normal life after the Clone Wars, Kallus had been of the perfect age to attend the newly-founded school run by the Empire on the otherwise unremarkable world where they had settled. Here he'd been taught history, or at least history as the Empire thought it should be written, and math, and science, and a smattering of the arts. He'd quickly learned contempt for the simple religious works his grandparents read in the evenings, replacing their superstitions with the firm truths of the permissible literature on his school syllabus.

Looking back now, he understood that he'd come at his schooling at a strange time in the Empire's slow crawl across the galaxy. Children in the Imperial schools had been groomed to attend the Imperial academies, and as such, while they had been taught what to think, their instructors had still considered it vital to teach their charges how to think. This, Kallus had often mused, had become their own undoing in officers of his generation. The intelligent ones, anyway. Given a large enough set of data, they inevitably came to their own conclusions, and this had not been to the Empire's benefit in his own case. Many other defectors he'd met during his time with the Rebellion told the same story. What you learned through hard experience could not be unlearned.

He was no scientist, but he found himself making observations, growing his data sets, and drawing conclusions that would have rattled the youth he'd been sitting in his classes at the start of his career.

* * *

  
**A Lasat at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by a restless boyfriend.**

Kallus still remembered with a gut-burning shame how eagerly he'd swallowed the stories about Lasan. The Lasats were brutes and savages. They were barely sapient. They lazed around all day, useful for nothing and no one. He'd chosen to believe those lies, and justified the destruction of that world and those people by his faith in the falsehoods.

Zeb was no brute, nor were the handful of Lasats Kallus had met. Their bodies were built on a different structure than humans and near-humans, and their culture had created different paths for them, carving grooves in their minds that were unlike the way he'd been taught to think. But Zeb was brighter than many Imperial officer's he'd known, and he was thoughtful, and he was nothing like Kallus had believed.

He did however sleep a great deal.

Kallus had learned this over time, coming to visit him aboard the _Ghost_ only to find him in his bunk time and again.

"How in the Force's name do you sleep so much?" he asked Zeb one day. It was the middle of the planet's afternoon, and for once, the weather was pleasant. He'd hoped to go for a stroll. He enjoyed the walks they took together around the base, basking in the silence of the other's company as they took in fresh air.

Zeb yawned and sat up. "How do you stay awake so much? I need a good eleven hours every day or I'm wiped."

"Eleven?" Kallus could manage six to seven at most. Before he could say something rude, he forced his mouth shut and thought about this for a moment. "Your body mass."

"What about my body mass?" Zeb asked, with a suspicious eye.

"I keep forgetting you're not a human."

This earned him a glare that was half amusement. Zeb extended one long purple arm. "Yeah, I can see how that might be hard to remember."

"You're not human, and your mass is much larger than a typical human or near human. But I've seen you eat. You don't consume more than anyone else on the ship. It's a simple energy expenditure equation."

Zeb yawned again. "Right. Are you staying?"

"Ah. I wanted to know if you wanted to take a walk. The weather's perfect today. But you need your rest."

"Nah, I'm up now." He stretched, and gave Kallus a toothy smile. "We'll go, and you can tell me more about how I'm bigger than you."

The briefings back in the day hadn't included the detail that Lasats not only had a sense of humor, it was also fairly dirty. Kallus didn't mind at all.

* * *

  
**A Twi'lek in motion tends to stay in motion and acts upon objects around her to do the same.**

They were all extraordinarily busy. Kallus had been drafted into Rebellion Intelligence for reasons that were both obvious and painful. He'd hoped to leave that part of his life behind when he'd left the Empire.

"The Rebellion is built from spare parts," Hera had told him when they'd first arrived on Yavin 4. "You might find a new niche, but to be honest, we need everyone where they fit best. You fit best in Intelligence with the rest of the Fulcrum network." She wasn't apologetic, and he wasn't going to argue with her. He had no reason to believe these people would trust him or want him on their side. He'd take whatever task they handed him.

He was good at it, though. No one could sift through all the reports from their spies and glean as much information as he did. No one could coordinate the activities of such disparate operators as well. No one could interrogate the newest defectors, with a friendly prodding worlds away from the tortures he'd once ordered to be employed, nearly so well as Kallus. He'd earned his place.

He was an incompetent lump when compared to the General. Kallus worked hard every day. Hera somehow packaged two or three days' worth of meetings and plans into the same time. He was an expert at his job. She'd become an expert at about ten jobs at once. And still, when the new recruits arrived and met their flight instructor, who also served as a high-ranking member of Rebellion Command, there were always a handful who saw nothing more than a pretty Twi'lek woman playing at being a General. She earned their respect every time, but it galled him to see that she had to.

"I underestimated you when we met," he told her as they both made their way toward the ship after a long day that had crept into night. "I don't know if I ever apologized."

"It's understood," she said, which meant no he had not and yes she had noticed he had not. Her shoulders relaxed as the _Ghost_ came into view, and she in turn relaxed towards him. "That was always the idea, you know. You were supposed to underestimate me. You were supposed to assume Kanan was the bigger threat and important target while I got things done. Don't feel bad that it worked. It kept us alive."

He remembered his first home, before the war had come. There had been beautiful birds native to his home world with splendid plumage. The males had been splendid, he recalled. The females had been plain, their feathers the same drab color as the forest floor, easy to miss while they got on with the important job of raising the young as predators were distracted by their flashy mates.

"I suppose it did."

As they boarded the ship, Kallus heard the high squeals of laughter of the small child who lived here with them. They found Jacen in the middle of the lounge, floating two meters in the air. Kanan stood close by, his hand lightly moving up and down in unison with his son gleefully bouncing in midair.

"I thought we talked about this," Hera said, stepping forward and scooping her son into her arms, plucking him from the air itself. "You could drop him."

"I would never," Kanan said, and kissed her cheek. "Dinner's waiting if you're hungry."

"Starving," Kallus said, heading towards the galley. He caught Hera's quiet shudder as she cuddled her child.

He readied the plates for all of them, thinking. There'd been some problems on Ryloth during the Clone Wars. The Separatists had cut off their supply lines. People had starved. He glanced out into the lounge. Hera asked Kanan how their day had gone, as if a day aboard the ship with a toddler were as interesting as her discussions with Mon Mothma earlier in the day. She was highly regarded across the Rebellion, and feared by more than a little of the Empire, and she'd been shaped into this person by watching friends and family starve to death under an oppressor's boot. Some people would have become hard and vicious from this. Hera wasn't hard, but she was strong, and instead of facing her cruel past with cruelty of her own, she'd grown kind. She worked harder than anyone he'd ever known to make the galaxy a better, safer place for everyone, especially the little boy in her arms.

Kallus made a note to himself never to say he was starving in front of her ever again. Then he stared ladling out their dinner before going to wake up Zeb.

* * *

**A human at peace with his life choices tends to stay at peace even when acted upon by an irrational object.**

They were on the move again. The Empire had sent scouts to the last planet. Kallus had seen the report where they were spotted, and Madine gave the order to scuttle the base.

"We just got here," said someone, a new face and Kallus hadn't learned the name to match yet.

"And we're leaving," Hera had said, striding over with a stack of datapads and handing them to the new person. "Lorso, take these to the shuttle heading for _Home One_."

There were other bases. An entire (if small) arm of Rebel Intelligence was dedicated to locating potential new hideouts. Kallus didn't have to deal with them. He only had to go where they directed, and if he happened to flee aboard the ship he'd made his unofficial home these last two years, so much the better.

In hyperspace, there was little to do. He'd already sorted through the reports that had come over the comms, and sent back his notes in a packet between the holographic meetings Hera took from the cockpit. Zeb was resting in their cabin, but it was the middle of the last planet's day, and Kallus was wide awake. His feet wandered toward the cockpit again, and with a shrug, he let himself inside. Radiant blue cascaded over the seats and panels. Kanan sat alone in his own chair, mask set aside, staring sightlessly into the coruscating light.

"Need something?" he asked Kallus, turning his head.

"No. Bit between things right now. Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all."

He made his way forward and sat in the brightly-decorated seat Sabine used to call her own. His brain was full of questions, turning over details in today's data, worrying about their destination and the veering trajectory of this long war. One piece of data stuck out. "Where's Hera?"

"She decided Jacen needed a bath."

"You normally bathe him."

"I do, but she wanted to spend a little time with him while she can. She doesn't mind missing the diaper changes, but she's afraid of missing all the little moments as he grows. The only down time she really gets is when we're traveling. I hate changing bases but I like it when Hera gets some rest."

"Bathing a telekinetic two year old doesn't sound restful."

"You'd be surprised." There was a warmth and peace in his voice that Kallus suspected was not typical for a Jedi.

"You're happy with this life. Aren't you?"

Kanan looked at him in puzzlement, his expression boring into Kallus as though he could see him sitting there. "Yeah?"

"You're a Jedi. This was never the life you were meant to lead. You couldn't have wanted to spend your days playing househusband and changing diapers." He saw the irritation grow on Kanan's face. "Don't take it poorly. I'm just...." He sat back in his borrowed chair, in this ship he had no right to be in, and stared at a man he'd tried to kill. "'Happy' isn't something I've expected from who we all are, and what we've done."

"We?"

"What I've done," he admitted. "I'm not sure I'm supposed to be happy now."

"Because of the people you've hurt, and lost."

"Yes."

"Will being miserable undo anything you did before? You know, back when you were a jerk?"

Kallus snorted in amusement at the gentle jibe. "I suppose not."

"Will it bring back the people you lost?"

"No."

"Then holding back from being happy doesn't solve anything. I spent a lot of time being bitter about what I lost, and I spent a lot more time mad at myself for how I dealt with that grief. Neither did me any good. Now I have two great kids off living their lives and doing incredible things. I've got an awesome little boy here on this ship who thinks I'm the coolest person alive. And I've got the most amazing woman in the galaxy who lets me come along wherever she goes and loves me no matter what. Yes, I'm happy with that."

"Right."

Kanan turned back to the cool blue wash. "Being happy isn't a matter of getting everything you ever thought you wanted. It's realizing you've already got everything you could ever want right there in front of you."

He nearly responded with another 'Right' but stopped himself, and looked at the data set. "Excuse me," he said, and left the cockpit. The crew cabins were right there. He opened the door to their cabin and let himself inside.

Zeb cracked open one eye. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I didn't mean to wake you." He shrugged off his jacket and boots, and climbed into the bunk beside Zeb. Zeb yawned and stretched his arms around Kallus, pulling him in tight.

He lay there quietly, and he listened as Zeb's breathing deepened back into sleep, and he let himself be happy.

**A being in love stays in love and acts upon this accordingly.**


End file.
